Tag Archives: personal branding

The growing importance of the social web is really beginning put a whole new perspective on something that used to be a low involvement decision- choosing a username. Over the years, I’ve increasingly moved away from the magic and fantastical (dark_merlin… wtf?) to something that uniquely identifies me allows me to build my personal brand. Still, when I chose my previous current default for a username, mpulfer89, I never thought about the distress a simple 89 would someday cause me. Not only does this immediately give away my age and spure judgement, but it’s pretty much childish. Choosing a ubiquitous username may seem like an unimportant task, but is increasingly important in building a unified personal brand across multiple platforms. Here are some tips for choosing your personal web identity so you don’t have to stress it once you’re serious about going big.

AVOID NUMBERS if at all possible. Birth years leave you vulnerable to age categorization and beg to be called out at an inopportune moment.

_ and . and – are your friend. The hyphen and the underscore can get you that one necessary character away from that pesky bastard who’s squatting your name while maintaining a clear personal brand.

Dont attempt to use clever spellings of your name to differentiate yourself from that pesky squatter. People won’t be able to find you when you decide to replace the I with an l in your name.

If your name is incredibly generic, take the time now to think of a professional, unique username that you can apply across many platforms.

A good starting point for building a solid username is a combination of initials and your names like mpulfer, michaelp, mapulfer, or michaelpulfer. If those are taken, play around with your friends _ . -. Finally, if all else fails try a simple modifier to get away from that pesky name squatter.

Personal branding is becoming increasingly important, especially if you want a voice in the growing discussion going on in the social web. Pick a good name now and save yourself many a heartache and “ADD MY NEW ACCOUNT @shortsighted.fool” posts later.

That being said, you can follow me on almost any social media platform under mpulfr, here’s my Twitter link to get you started.